Pangaea
       

You can see us here, drifters,
three entire continents of emotions
under one single roof. More, if you count
relatives scattered here and there like islands:

one grandma who speaks a foreign language,
the language of the old,
and a grandpa worn soft by nine decades of erosion.

Our edges are not as smooth as theirs.
Sometimes I feel like the Rock of Gibraltar,
both tourist attraction and gate to the underworld.
My words are as sharp as rocks.

Across the room, my son is a Florida key,
separated from me by 300 million years
instead of forty. I want to hold him
until he forgets I am made of flesh and bone.

My husband is nothing if not Antarctica.
The other day, I looked into his eyes and saw ferns.
Fossilized, they spoke volumes,
the words coming out of his eyes
instead of a mouth that clammed shut
as he watched his wife and son fight—
breaking plates as if they were just china.

There was a time when we were a supercontinent,
There was a time when I let the water crash at my feet,
inviting father and son to splash in it.

Look at us now, just spilling off the map.

Tweet

Copyright © 2014 Felicia Mitchell All rights reserved
from Waltzing with Horses
Press 53
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission